Unsolicited Advice by Autumn Piper {Guest Post, Review & Giveaway}

At certain points in our lives, everyone we know seems bent on giving us advice. Pregnancy, for example. Everybody—women and even crotchety old men alike all have some advice to offer about being pregnant, labor, or parenting. It’s a huge shock, after going through life mostly minding your own business, to suddenly have so many people believe it’s perfectly reasonable to share wisdom about such intimate topics. But, as any parent knows, this advice-giving only intensifies once baby arrives. It’s like nature makes babies cute for the sole purpose of drawing in nosey old ladies who’ll insist you’ve either got the baby wrapped too tight or not covered up enough. This continues on, pretty much until the teen years, when all the advisors seem to disappear. (I’m guessing this is either because they’ve decided you know what you’re doing at this point, or they figure no advice will help with parenting teens. It’s like you’ve plunged over Niagara Falls. No help for you now; might as well wait and see what shape you’re in when you surface.) Relationship crisis is another point in our lives where people offer advice—again, often without being asked. In Trouble Won’t Wait, Mandy has caught her husband cheating, and is giving herself time to think clearly in order to decide what she should do. But everybody seems to know just what she should do:

Her great-aunt Clara:

“I think you oughtta take a lesson from the black widda spider,” she says matter-of-factly.

I choke on a cookie, blowing crumbs against my palm. “Aunt Clara, the female black widow eats the male after they mate!”

“Aww, it was a man who made that story up. The truth is, the female only kills him if she can smell that he’s been with another female.”

Oh, that’s so much better. “So, you think we should kill a man if he cheats?”

“Nah, just know this--sooner or later, he’s gonna run into a nasty spider of a woman if he keeps foolin’ around in dark corners, but it’s time to kick him outta your nest. Let the other female kill him when she finds him cheatin’ on her.”

Her very BIG brother Mark:

“Want me to kick his ass?”

The very kooky marriage counselor:

Baldwin opens the dialogue. “Do you still love him?”

Jesus, did Mike put him up to asking that?

“It doesn’t matter. I can’t forgive him for what he did. I’ll never forget what I saw, it comes to me at all hours of the day and night.”

“So you do still love him, but you’re angry, possibly jealous of his having another partner without your consent.”

Without my consent. This guy probably advocates swapping and threesomes, all the fun and games, as long as both spouses consent. I snap my gawping mouth shut.

Good ole Baldwin looks me straight in the eye. “What if you were to have an encounter with an outside partner, to even the score?”

In the end, Mandy works out a very suitable closure for her situation (can’t say more without spoiling). I hope you’ll check it out.

Blurb:Good things may come to those who wait, but trouble waits for no one…

Cheating is a dealbreaker...or so Mandy’s always thought. But when
she catches her husband getting some “strange,” she realizes how hard
it is to cut and run, or even file papers. She agrees to a month
of counseling, which will give her time to grieve the loss of her
marriage before she has to tell the world—and the kids.

Then she meets Adam, who gives her a hunky--if mysterious--shoulder
to cry on, and that thirty-day waiting period seems like an eternity.

Adam has no problem confessing that he’s watched Mandy from his window
for months as she runs by his house. If he told her why, though, she’d
freak out for sure. He knows they’ve got a future together, if he can
think of a way to explain his past. And he’s sure the rat-bastard who
cheated on her is putting the moves on her again, but he won’t be the
revenge guy.

The month-long cooling
off period she agreed to is lasting forever, and might just be
indefinite, if trouble keeps getting in their way.

Trouble Won't Waitby Autumn Piper AmazonBarnes & NobleLyrical PressI
doubt Baldwin understands my resolve, so I explain. “I’m only here
because I’m stalling Mike until after the holidays to separate.” Or was
Mike stalling me? I’m not sure anymore. “I have no intention of ever
sleeping with him again, and I want a divorce.” That should be clear
enough. His bushy brows shoot up. I’ve piqued the wanta-be therapist’s
interest.

“Why do you feel that way?”

God, could it be more simple? “He had sex with a woman we know, while I
was in the same house! Anybody, even one of the kids, could have
walked in on it! It makes me sick to think of him touching me.”

“Do you still love him?”

Jesus, did Mike put him up to asking that?

“It doesn’t matter. I can’t forgive him for what he did. I’ll never
forget what I saw, it comes to me at all hours of the day and night.”

“So you do still love him, but you’re angry, possibly jealous of his having another partner without your consent.”

Without my consent. This guy probably advocates swapping and
threesomes, all the fun and games, as long as both spouses consent. I
snap my gawping mouth shut. Good ole Baldwin looks me straight in the
eye.

“What if you were to have an encounter with an outside partner, to even the score?”

Is it the smoke from the candles or his suggestion making me choke?
“You mean like a revenge affair?” Stampeding thoughts of Adam shred my
calm like buffalo through prairie turf. I feel flushed.

* * * *

As I clomp past Adam’s back fence, a very wet snowball clobbers the
back of my head. I react in time to see a second tightly-packed missile
heading at my chest, and move aside without a moment to spare. Adam
thinks he has an advantage hiding behind his fence, but he doesn’t
expect me to charge straight for him and run through the gate so he can
face me like a man.

In his yard, we wage silent war for
several minutes. The only audible evidence of the battle is the
splatting of snowballs exploding on impact, and an occasional grunt as
we bend our old bodies over to form our weapons. I’ve been stockpiling
mine, awaiting opportunity. Which just arrived.

He’s bent over, packing and rounding a huge ball. He must think
there’s some Snowball Fight Code of Ethics, and I won’t attack if he’s
unarmed. He’s sadly mistaken. I launch my stash in quick succession,
until his entire backside is white.

He waves his snow-whitened glove in the air, begging, “Truce, truce!”

“You started it, troublemaker!” I cautiously approach, making sure
he’s going to abide by his truce and it’s not an ambush. His cheeks are
pink and his eyes are bright.

“I see the wheels turning, tell me what you’re thinking,” he prods softly.

“How lucky I am that I met you at just the right time.”

“You’re tryin’ to kill me, aren’t you?”

It makes me giggle, while he hugs me hard against him. With all our outerwear, it’s more of a big squeeze than a hug.

It’s time for me to go, and as I back out the gate, Adam says, “I’m crazy for you, remember.”

I answer with, “Me, too. Bonkers. Nutso.” I turn and run.

My Review:

Trouble Won't Wait is an extremely entertaining contemporary romance that hits the ground running right from the get-go. Once I started reading, I had a difficult time putting it down and finished the book in two days!When Mandy returns from a walk to discover her husband in flagrante delicto in the garage with her "friend," she's completely stunned and furious, having no clue, up to this point, of what was going on. She agrees to a month of marriage counseling, although she's certain her marriage is over but doesn't want to disrupt the holidays for her kids. I struggled right along with Mandy as she tried to deal with her emotions and the consequences of her husband's infidelity. Add to all that the handsome sexy neighbor, Adam, who has watched Mandy for months and finally works up the courage to approach her, mixed with Autumn Piper's unique voice in story-telling and you've got a must-read!Autumn Piper has written a wonderful story that has it all...humor, strong emotion, believable and colorful characters and a strong-spirited heroine with a lot of romantic, sexual tension between her and the hunky neighbor. If you like a story with sexy sizzle, I highly recommend Trouble Won't Wait and give it a 5 Swan Review!

I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review and participation in a Virtual Book Tour hosted by Buy the Book Tours.

Author Bio:

Autumn Piper

WebsiteBlogFacebookTwitterGoodreadsFollow @AutumnPiperAuthI
write contemporary romance with a high heat index to match their
American southwest settings. Known by my writing buddies as "Angst", I
have a penchant for making my characters suffer. My stories may be
tributes to the old saying, "No pain, no gain", but my Hero and Heroine
always get the happily-ever-after they so deserve. I
love sunny days, hot bread, the ocean, and that fluttery feeling I get
inside at the first spark of a great romance. In between being a wife,
mom of two teens, editor and writer, I like to read, garden, take
morning walks, and make people laugh--probably succeed here when I try
to jog.For me, an excellent
book has characters I can sympathize with or hate (sometimes both at
once), a story I simply must see through to the end, and realistic
dialogue. Give me those key elements, and I'll read any genre or time
period, any author.